


Illusion

by Dominatrix



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: (a bit), AU, Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-28
Updated: 2014-02-28
Packaged: 2018-01-14 02:34:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1249552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dominatrix/pseuds/Dominatrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he saw him fall again, with torturing slowness, John woke up with Sherlock's name on his lips. And looked into the face of his best friend.<br/>(In which "The Reichenbachfall" is nothing but a dream.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Illusion

“Goodbye, John.”

He had never believed that it would only need so little to chop his life into piece.

“SHERLOCK!”

John felt the cold, the sudden cold that captured his lungs.

“I was so alone and I owe you so much.”

He would suffocate in the next moment, he knew it. He just knew it.

“Just one more thing. Don't be dead.”

Solitude. Bitter solitude. He watched himself walking from the cemetery to the hotel room that had become his new home. He almost felt the pain in his leg when he saw himself limping along the street.

“You machine!”

Painful memories when John thought about the fact that these had been the last words he had said to Sherlock's face. Had he really believed them?  
“It was all a lie, John.” No. No, it couldn't be. Or could it?

A falling body, a black feather which hit reality far too hard. He almost believed that Sherlock was screaming his name, and suddenly his view shifted, his body seemed to be shivering violently.

When he saw him fall again, with torturing slowness, John woke up with Sherlock's name on his lips. And looked into the face of his best friend.

“John. John, wake up.” The urging voice of the other man was Sherlock's, but John knew that it couldn't be his. He knew that the man who was wrapped in a dark blue dressing gown, sitting next to him on the edge of his bed, still shaking him, couldn't really be Sherlock.

“John!” But he looked exactly like him, he had the same voice, even the same intonation John had always heard when he had cleaned up one of Sherlock's experiments because he had believed it had been the usual chaos.

“Sherlock?” John asked carefully. He had seen him fall. He had run to him. He had wanted to feel his non-existing pulse.  
Sherlock sighed the way he always did, but his concerned expression stayed. “Obviously. What is wrong? You were screaming like a maniac. Mrs Hudson wanted to call the police because she thought you were being murdered.”

John couldn't imagine how his face had to look right now. He knew only too well that a symptom of PTSD could be hallucinations. He had lived through them often enough. But that had been before Sherlock.

“Sherlock. Did we solve the case about the robbery about a painting of the Reichenbachfall?” Sherlock frowned.

“About what?” He seemed to remember something. “I think I read about it. A stolen painting. That's not even a four. Boring.” John nodded, relieved.

“You're right. You know what? Let's go on holiday. I don't care where.”

“John, are you alright?” Sherlock was still looking quite worried. “Yes, yes. Never been better. Just promise me one thing. No cases in the near future. Not even one.”

Sherlock frowned forehead hadn't smoothed fully, but the Consulting Detective nodded anyway. “Fair enough.”

They spent the next six weeks without any work at all. Sherlock was dissatisfied with the warmth of Italy, in a mountain village in Switzerland the air was too thin for him, in a city near Prague it was too calm and in LA it was too loud. John endured all these nerve-racking conversations because he somehow had the feeling that it wouldn't be too clever to return to London right now.

He had been able to convince Sherlock to leave his phone at Baker Street. In return, he had to swear now to complain about body parts in the fridge for the next three years. John expected this deal to have consequences. That they would be of an importance to influence his life very heavily...He would have never thought that.  
Lestrade called Sherlock's phone about thirty times and begged to call him back. He needed help with a painting. And it was possible that Moriarty was up to something.

Moriarty was indeed up to something, but he soon lost interest in his master plan to solve his last problem with the Consulting Detective when said Detective wasn't even in the country.

The painting of the Reichenbachfall was never found.  
Jim Moriarty never broke into the Tower of London, the Bank of England and the Pentonville prison.  
He died at a car chase, led by Gregory Lestrade, about four years later, when the driver of their escape car, Sebastian Moran, lost control over the vehicle on an ice-covered road. Both men were dead instantly.

Sherlock Holmes never had to fake his own death, never had to live with the knowledge that his best friend believed that he had killed himself. He kept on solving crimes with John and kept on complaining about the work of Scotland Yard, although he started to develop a bit of respect for Lestrade's skills after Moriarty's death. That didn't mean he didn't complain about his work any more.

John never got to know a woman named Mary Morstan, at least not the way that it would influence his later life. He bumped into her at Sainsbury's when he was buying milk, which Sherlock used up in racing speed because of his experiments, helped her pick her groceries back up and said sorry a thousand times before returning to 221B Baker Street, to Sherlock.

 


End file.
